Saturday 21 July 2012

Vienna joy

Splendid - another full house tonight... and this lot would not stop clapping... which was nice!
...and the weather has improved, a wee bit of rain, but mainly sun.
Bob went on the Prater ferris wheel this am with TLQ friends Regula and Lotti... where they made a film noir on a telephone - that will be interesting!! The Third Woman perhaps?
I'll tell you what it's like when I've seen it!

Wonderful three days - hoping we may be able to squeeze in a Christmas visit... we shall see

PS: I did, it seems, put the mockers on England at cricket, South Africa are romping away...

Friday 20 July 2012

This is ridiculous

Can this please be sorted out; we came here for a lovely three days of central European sun and some splendid gigs in the Theater am Spittelberg, and then it rains ALL THE TIME!
Another flood on the way back to the hotel.
This is not what we were promised.

Well the second half of what we came for is splendid - A full house very much enjoyed being out of the rain and indeed our show....
...can we see some sky tomorrow please...


Ah, Vienna

Well waddya know?
I tell of the glorious sunshine when lo and behold, the most biblical flood arrives for a few hours... many of our audience (and our employer!) were soaked to the skin as they entered the theatre.
Biblical it was - and we were told later that in the offices just over the road from our hotel, there is a copy of the Bible in every translation as yet created (it is quite a big office!)

Now the weather has settled down to English slightly dank, so that's nice.

I could say at least we are doing well in the cricket against South Africa, but I don't want that to go wrong too.

As to the show, we had a splendid time, and the audience were damp but excellent!  They seemed to enjoy the HeeBeeGeeBees song we sang for them... and the wigs too... and of course Steve in his lederhosen.
Our Flanders and Swann Song of the Weather with German lyrics by Maggie Forsythe went down especially well!

Two more nights of the same at Theater am Spittelberg - hopefully minus Noah's influence.

Thursday 19 July 2012

Tuttlingen Summer Festival

Another splendid German a cappella nacht organised by Peter Martin Jakob and Magenta - three groups, as ever; last night we were joined by the delightful sonic suite & the hilarious KaiRo  - all together in the Summer Festival at Tuttlingen.  The crammed-full tent was thoroughly noisily happy with each of us - tremendous all round...

Now we are in Vienna, awaiting three nights at the Theater am Spittelberg - splendid... and in glorious sunshine, which after the summer so far, is a bit of a shock to the system.


Monday 16 July 2012

Lord Young party

Wonderful to be part of Lord Young's birthday weekend!
As stalwarts of Chichester Festival Theatre, Lord and Lady Young also had Chichester celebrations too...

Many big noises from business, theatre and politics were there too - delighted to say that Michael Portillo was looking amused and happy during our singing!

After lunch was done & our solo set was over - a specially-created entertainment created by Simon Brett (words) & Christopher Summerfield (music) was given by us along with West End stars (and recently Chichester stars) Annette McLaughlin (shortly to join cast of Matilda) & Steve Elias.  The Noble Lord was terrifically delighted with having all these songs pastiched in his honour - including Maggie May (natch!), Don't go down to the Apple Store & Hey Dude - and clearly was happy to be the butt of some jokes... Wonderful to work with all these splendid people...

A lovely sunshine-filled (yes, that's right, sunshine-filled!) afternoon in the countryside...
Hooray!

Friday 6 July 2012

four go cruising

We have had a sun-filled week [apologies for those stuck in the rain] wandering around the Med. on the RCI ship Navigator of the Seas - marvellous!
We started in Athens - which amazingly looks thriving despite the country's financial woes; then it was on to Civitavecchia (port of Rome); Chania, Crete; Messina, Sicily, a re-visit to Athens and finally we came home from Kusadasi, Turkey...
We did do some shows of course - four in all (over two nights); lots of nationalities on board - about 60 all tolled - but the main bulk were English/US/Canada & Italian - so we did a bi-lingual show, as well as singing that old Italian favourite, as sung by Tito Gobbi, La Montanara.

Met lots of great people on board - and as is often the case, the musicians were excellent - great big band (Mainly Americans) with a a very dynamic drummer; and some splendid singers for the cast shows.
...and I got to see the new Akropolis Museum - how splendid!